I've done a debian (3.0) install on a laptop having a FDD and PCMCIA slot, but no cdrom. The default debian floppy disks do not have full support for PCMCIA devices, so I needed to put in cardmgr support files and a statically linked cardmgr.
FDDs on laptops are good to have for simple data transfers because the PCMCIA network can easily be more of a nuisance. Is there a definitive page on this sort of installation ? Its not obvious from the debian documentation I've looked at, or the linux laptop page. In any case, it now works and I have the base system installed. But it seems difficult to use indexed cdroms via nfs mount. The cdrom method barfs. You can use the file method, and at least the packages exist in the database, but you do not have a sense of the different cdroms, and must update each cdrom individually, figuring out by different means what cdroms you need. Is there a better workaround for this issue ? I'm not on this list, please cc any replies to me. Thanks, -- If there were no pain, there would be no-one to appreciate it. John August
